As the British, having duped journalists, split the money

The hackers from the group Anonymous published a package of documents regulating the activities of the British organization «Integrity Initiative». Only a superficial analysis of the presentation and budget gives every reason to believe that the “fighter with fakes” do not have at their disposal any facts for the stated opposition to the “Russian disinformation”. Following in the wake of Russia’s unfounded accusations of all serious crimes committed on planet Earth, overseas propagandists and those who stand behind them, apparently, invented and implemented a scheme to extract from the budget of the United Kingdom about two million pounds sterling per year.

According to the quarterly budget review, from April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019, 196,500 pounds sterling were pledged for management services (approximately 16.3 million rubles), only 72.6 thousand pounds of which is the director’s salary ( over 6 million rubles, 500 thousand rubles per month). For this money, the manager and his team were to conduct a number of high-cost activities.

For example, aimed at expanding the agent network — it was called the «cluster network». At the moment, the organization interacts (allegedly) with journalists, scholars and representatives of political elites in Spain, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Norway, Serbia and Italy. There was a need to establish similar contacts in Moldova, Georgia, Montenegro, Sweden, Malta, USA, Canada, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Latvia. There is a “research network” in Ukraine and in Jordan. On it is allocated 498,656 pounds.

Of interest is the budget line “Sending network members to study abroad”, since it mentions extremely unpopular Ukrainian resources (StopFake, Detector Media) and IREX (International Council for Research and Exchanges). Nearly 40,000 pounds was allocated for training «whistleblowers», including those from European EUvsDisinfo and LT MOD Stratcom.

The editorial staff of RIA «SM-News» has already given examples of the work of IREX. In Russia, the organization’s activities have not been conducted since 2016. In 2013-2014, the IREX Foundation played a role in the coup d’etat in Ukraine.

Improving the qualifications of the staff of the above organizations was justified by the need to supply propaganda materials in Russian and local languages, “including adapted for the Russian-speaking minority”.

Twice a year, network agents had to meet “influential people” and discuss national trends. It planned to spend 63,998.4 pounds.

However, the YouTube channel “StopFake” has 28 thousand subscribers, and the views of each video (coming out at a frequency of 4-5 per month) fluctuate within only 1-2 thousand. And on November 19, probably, the already trained employees of the organization announced a change in the format of the vlog. It consisted in castling: the lead Margot Gontar, the talking head in the frame, was exchanged for a man (first in a turtleneck and then in a shirt) named Ruslan Deynichenko. The latter, as an employee of Voice of America, produced several materials from 2015 to 2017: Chernobyl is attractive for tourists, Ukraine’s alternative energy industry is booming, anti-Russian sanctions are needed, and American coal has arrived in Ukraine. He also worked in the “Present” project from the “Voice of America”.

“Initially, the Project existed as a volunteer one, then we continued our activities thanks to crowdfunding — donations from our readers. In addition, financial support for the Project in 2015-2017 was provided by the International Foundation “Відродження”, “The National Fund for Democracy”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and the British Embassy in Ukraine, The Sigrid Rausing Trust,” “Whistleblowers” tell the visitors. The organization employs, if you believe the information published in the «About Us» section, thirty people.

Another area in which the British budget was sawn was the sponsorship of so-called “investigations”, educational courses and publications. The effect of «cleverness», high quality and academic material would be achieved using the site of the Free University of Brussels (VUB IES). For 79,998 pounds, the VUB team would be able to advise «influential people» interested in the proposal.

And in order to stop the “problem of Russian influence and disinformation” in the world, analytical centers (SWB in Berlin, IFRI in France, Clingendael in the Netherlands) would launch their own programs for the same amount.

There is not much money, so the list of services offered was blown up to a bubble:

Launch of a series of educational films — 133.33 thousand pounds sterling;

A four-day seminar in Lithuania with the participation of 20 lecturers — 93,331 pounds. For this amount, the organizers would teach the participants “a theoretical understanding of the Kremlin’s propaganda and its trolls”;

Identification of a network of bots and PR people — 124,796.88 pounds;

Almost 120 thousand pounds more fell for the sake of allegedly teaching media on the example of raising on the English version of the Scripals case … materials from the Ukrainian StopFake and IREX foundation. Target audience is schoolchildren and students from the provinces.

And so on.

A separate point is the involvement of the Russian-speaking audience in the discussion of the course of Moscow. Only for the presentation of the project in the framework of the Donbass Media Forum in July 2018 allocated a whole thousand pounds. The forum was held in Kharkov, about 500 journalists from Ukraine and Western countries took part in it.

“In 2018, the Forum will take place against the background of the aggravation of the internal political struggle in Ukraine on the eve of parliamentary and presidential elections, when growth of political populism and biased publications in the media is expected,” the organizers of the event reported.

Moreover, the participants presented a project to create «their own fake news» — «The bad news» («Bad News»). Someone John Rosenbake from the University of Cambridge played with journalists in the game, during which he taught «to create and inflate fakes.»

“The game“ The bad news ”showed how, in practice, you can create and“ inflate ”fakes,” the journalists told a little differently. It is unlikely that they thought that they were taught to disgusting not in order to improve their skills, but that they «playfully» fulfill the tasks assigned to those who saw the money allocated for it.

And so on and so forth.

The report accompanying the budget should be itself the object of a detailed study of the “fighters with fakes”. Just like Rosenbake “inflating fakes”, the authors of the text come up with a statement that is presented for the truth.

The «Integrity Initiative» created in 2015 at the sites of the Institute of Public Administration and the Free University of Brussels to “bring to the attention of politicians, opinion of leaders and other stakeholders information about the Russia’s threat to democratic institutions in the UK, across Europe and North America,” says the organization’s handout.

In general, according to the version presented by the British, surprisingly, in Russia there are no bears with balalaikas and gypsies in the streets, but there is a population allegedly suppressed by the president who came to power with a team of power structures striving for fame and fortune.

“Why is Putin determined to bomb the West with disinformation while he is feeding his people with lies about the intentions of the West and his own regime?” They ask a question that deliberately contains an untrue statement.

You can rephrase. For example:

«Why do you buy a yellow jacket if someone wears a green one?»

And both of these questions are identical. Good for «fake games.»

In principle, according to the “Integrity” textbooks, children can be frightened, but by no means real journalists. Although … those who agreed to drag other people’s carts in opaque blinders, it was more important to get a chance to touch the rustling pieces of paper exchanged in points for the national currency. Well, and as for the materials produced, neither money nor “their own” do not smell?